Russian Football Premier League: opening day games

In the Russian Premier League, last year's champion CSKA joined Amkar Perm at the top of the table of the teams after the first games being played. Last season's eighth-place Tom is just behind them.

CSKA took on Rubin, Kazan, in Moscow and made a perfect start with 3-1 win over the team of Kurban Berdyev. However, it was not straight forward. Gazzaev's men forced to come from behind to claim the three points.

The coaches of both teams said after the match that in general they were happy with the performance.

“I am pleased with the way we played. We can't win 10-0, obviously, while Rubin were a very organised side with good defence, and it was hard to break them down,” said Valery Gazzaev, CSKA Head Coach.

“We made some really silly mistakes which CSKA took the full advantage of. All in all, for the first match of the season, I am happy with the performance,” stressed Kurban Berdyev, Rubin Head Coach.

The derby of the two Moscow teams, Spartak and Dynamo, turned out to be tough with the referee having to struggle to keep his control over the game. Dynamo's direct physical football gave the team many chances to score in the first few minutes, which, however, were not converted.

For its part, Spartak began to string better moves together and they began to look more likely to score. Finally, with 10 minutes to go Egor Titov found himself in space and slotted a cool finish into the corner to the delight of the Spartak fans and his manager. Dynamo continued to toil, but never seriously threatened the Spartak's goalkeeper.

“I like the fact that we have won. In recent years, Spartak made a weak start. Today's victory is very important to us, ” emphasised Vladimir Fedotov, the manager of Spartak Moscow.

“It was a very interesting game to watch. We made an attempt to counter-attack, but, well, we were not strong enough. There were some bright moments. We were not terrible,” said Andrey Kobelev, the manager of Dynamo Moscow.

Zenit Saint-Petersburg held a home game against Saturn from the Moscow region. After the first half going with no goals, the pendulum of the game swung and Saturn, in their turn, were awarded a penalty just a few minutes after the re-start. Andrey Karyaka made the most of it. Zenit equalised in the second minute of the injury time, when Tekke scored a beautiful header. The match ended with 1-1 draw.

In other matches of the first day of the Russian Premiership, Amkar Perm defeated Rostov with 3-1, and Kuban Krasnodar and Lokomotive Moscow had a 0-0 draw.

Three games were also played Saturday with FC Moscow claiming their away win against Luch Vladivostok, Tom defeating Spartak Nalchik 2-0 and Krylia Sovetov upsetting visitors from Khimki.